Opens Nationwide Today

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to walk the red carpet with my business partner Stephen Baldwin on the U.S.S. Intrepid to view ACT OF VALOR with about 120 VIPS from NYC. Notable progressives were in attendance–Montel Williams, Ellis Henican, and others. In short, the evening was special, not just because the film is a breathtaking action movie, the likes of which comes along once in a generation, but because the story has more heart than any movie made about our military in the last twenty years.

The filmmaker’s Q & A following the screening was also very telling. Their primary motivation for making this apolitical movie about the life of Navy Seals was primarily to pay honor and tribute to the sacrifice these extraordinary individuals make in order for all the rest of us to walk around free.

The liberals in attendance gave the film the same standing ovation I did, because they were drawn into an intense story line that did not choose partisan sides.

That’s not to say that liberals who haven’t seen the film aren’t making a partisan issue of it.

A more heinous, asinine, and dishonest expression of this is this piece from Gawker. The author Hamilton Nolan, speaking completely out of ignorance on the matter, seems to imply that the filmmakers attempted to make this piece of “propaganda” to cash in on the press of the Osama bin Ladin take down. If he had actually spoken to the filmmakers–as I did–he would’ve learned that this cinematic masterpiece was in the works four years prior to the OBL raid.

Nolan’s ignorant trash-talking about Relativity Media also demonstrates the lack of knowledge (does anyone who blogs at Gawker actually ever have to know anything) because Relativity came in on the marketing and distribution to help push the film to a somewhat normal level of theaters for opening weekend. Their cash infusion also allowed this tiny independent passion project to get some needed television ad space.

It is difficult to put into words how important this film is. It is even harder to put into words how GOOD this film is.

As the CEO of a media company with several film projects in the works, let me just tell you–art this good usually doesn’t get the recognition it deserves if it’s patriotic. But there is absolutely no reason why this film shouldn’t be up for multiple recognitions from the academy, if all they were measuring was the quality of the craft.

The fact that it won’t will only be enhanced if we turn it into the biggest movie of the weekend!